A Scuba Diving Instructor Salary Explained - How much do Dive Instructors earn?

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There's an old joke, it goes something like this:

What's the difference between a scuba instructor and a large pizza?

A large pizza can feed a family of four.

So, I'm following this thread with a lot of interest.

IMHO, one of the biggest problems with trying to earn a living in this activity is there is always someone willing to work in scuba "for the love of the sport" and someone working for peanuts devalues instruction. This leads to the "race to the bottom" mentality, which tries to go for quantity over quality and this is why we still see OW scuba classes being sold for <$500 today. When running cheap scuba programs, something has to give somewhere, and it's usually in the areas of student contact hours or ratios. The course is either the bare minimum in time (3 days), or there are 6-8 students per instructor, or even both.

The other thing that can happen when you see cheap courses is quality of instruction can go down. The more experienced an instructor gets in the activity, they either move on to teach more lucrative courses OR they drop out altogether because unlike that pizza, they can't feed their family while working in the lower rungs of the activity. And, sadly, in some cases when you opt for a cheap course you either wind up with very burned out instructors going through the motions, or someone that while enthusiastic, is very green and new to scuba instruction. To be clear, that isn't ALWAYS the case, there are some very good, passionate, experienced instructors that are able to do this for cheap, but they are the rarity.

I truly believe one of the best things the industry could do to reform itself is focus less on OW certification courses and instead push for more DSD's, but with smaller ratios and a quality experience as their "first hit" on the scuba crack pipe. If the bug bites them and they get the urge to continue in the activity, they should pay for and receive a quality course. Under this model, it would be realistic for instructors to earn living (and even decent) wages. A person earning a decent wage will hopefully be more inclined to truly be a professional, treat their customers fairly, produce quality products (courses), and stay in the industry long term.

To give a comparison of how this model could work, let's look at skydiving. I pulled up two local skydiving web-sites and this is what I found:

A tandem jump, which is usually a 2-4 hour "experience" and includes a video of your flight, averages $200. Think of this as your DSD.

An accelerated free fall program, which looks to be about 4-5 days of instruction (and 7 jumps), is $1350 if you buy it as a package, and $1500 if you go piecemeal. Think of this as your basic OW scuba course.

If scuba instruction were priced where a 1/2 day DSD experience were in the ~$250 range and a 5 day OW course were ~$1750, I think it would be quite possible for an individual to earn a living and maybe even make a decent wage if they were fairly organized about it. The problem is selling these experiences/courses when there's a guy down the road offering a 3 day scuba certification for $500.

On my side, I'm pretty much close to the top of the dung heap when it comes to cave and tech instruction (I'm a cave/cave CCR instructor examiner), and while I believe I charge more than "market" prices (I have a 2 student minimum which means a solo student is paying significantly more), I make more per day at my day job, especially once you add in healthcare, leave and retirement benefits. Things that influence how much I make teaching include fixed costs (agency dues, insurance), variable but constant costs (gear repair/replacement, vehicle wear & tear), market demand (how many students/classes I can book), and how many days a month I can physically work in a month. However, I'm pretty sure I could earn a decent living wage if I were to cast off my day job, but it took me years of blood, sweat and tears to get here.

I will make a general comment on economics of this. Price of the course is not relevant to the costs of the course. If you raised the prices of the course, profit margin will increase but not go the the instructor as long as there will be enough instructors to work cheaply. Goal of any business is to increase profit margin, as long as they can deliver comparable quality, business will choose cheaper instructor. A tech course has a completely different product mix than owd course. Tech course customer is not an average joe, he is prepared to pay significantly more than owd customer, so, demand for the tec course is less elastic than owd. You can charge significantly more due this. I wonder how 500$ was calculated as equilibrium by the industry, I would be interested to know if anyone has insights.
 
More to do with the "holiday resort" location and how much people would part with to "do their paddy".

Probably it's $10k in St Tropez because you get a Gucci bag with your dive certification card (or not 'cos you're not trusted to immediately throw it straight into the ocean). But the rest of the world it's probably circa $500 as that's the most someone can pry out of a tourist's pocket in one go.
 
Where I'll disagree is on academics and classroom time - I think there are some things that an instructor should cover even if the student did it all in e-learning (Boyles Law - squeezes/blocks/overexpansion injuries; Deco theory for on/off-gassing, dive planning, and DCI; Diving environment - specifically, local environmental considerations that were likely not covered in a generic e-learning).
When eLearning first started, the Director of Instruction where I was working was dead set against it. Then he decided to do a trial run, and the results were so good that he opened it up to everyone. I think it was maybe my 12th eLearning student who finally missed a question on the final exam. Yes, I added my own stuff when I met with the students, as did everyone else.

When a new Director of Instruction took over, he made eLearning 100% of what we did. He then asked all of the instructors to make a list of the topics we taught the students in addition to or to reinforce the eLearning. From those lists he made a common list that we all had to teach in addition to the eLearning so we were consistent.

I think that was a great approach.
 
I will make a general comment on economics of this. Price of the course is not relevant to the costs of the course. If you raised the prices of the course, profit margin will increase but not go the the instructor as long as there will be enough instructors to work cheaply. Goal of any business is to increase profit margin, as long as they can deliver comparable quality, business will choose cheaper instructor. A tech course has a completely different product mix than owd course. Tech course customer is not an average joe, he is prepared to pay significantly more than owd customer, so, demand for the tec course is less elastic than owd. You can charge significantly more due this. I wonder how 500$ was calculated as equilibrium by the industry, I would be interested to know if anyone has insights.

There's a guy that's drawing a six figure salary annually teaching recreational openwater classes in South Florida. He charges $2000 per student and gets it frequently enough that he's not starving.

I believe that you are correct that as long as instructors are willing to work for peanuts, they will be paid peanuts.
 
I will make a general comment on economics of this. Price of the course is not relevant to the costs of the course. If you raised the prices of the course, profit margin will increase but not go the the instructor as long as there will be enough instructors to work cheaply. Goal of any business is to increase profit margin, as long as they can deliver comparable quality, business will choose cheaper instructor. A tech course has a completely different product mix than owd course. Tech course customer is not an average joe, he is prepared to pay significantly more than owd customer, so, demand for the tec course is less elastic than owd. You can charge significantly more due this. I wonder how 500$ was calculated as equilibrium by the industry, I would be interested to know if anyone has insights.

This is the big thing. It really does not matter how much the class costs. If "professionals" are willing to work for the love of it, then lds will use those people, and not pay more.
 
The video was quite informative. You have to work where the money is. You move abroad to earn 1500 a month, during high season, and if you sell a lot of masks and fins and yoga classes and if you can develop web pages, then you can earn 2500 and build a future.
 
My only question after this video is can he afford to shop at IKEA?

- He does not need to. He lives on a liveaboard. Isn't it great?

I got the feeling that scuba instruction is really not a great job. And it is obvious! How much training do you need to become an OWSI? Half a year? It could offer you some extra income but as a career it is a better option to Mac Donalds only.
 
When eLearning first started, the Director of Instruction where I was working was dead set against it. Then he decided to do a trial run, and the results were so good that he opened it up to everyone. I think it was maybe my 12th eLearning student who finally missed a question on the final exam. Yes, I added my own stuff when I met with the students, as did everyone else.

When a new Director of Instruction took over, he made eLearning 100% of what we did. He then asked all of the instructors to make a list of the topics we taught the students in addition to or to reinforce the eLearning. From those lists he made a common list that we all had to teach in addition to the eLearning so we were consistent.

I think that was a great approach.


I do, too.
Any chance that list is still relevant and you have a copy?
 
There's a guy that's drawing a six figure salary annually teaching recreational openwater classes in South Florida. He charges $2000 per student and gets it frequently enough that he's not starving.

Is he including passes to the Hard Rock casino, a bottle of scotch, and a all expense paid night at the Cheetah in Pompano?
 

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